Mala Suerte
by Thorn In Your Side
Summary: Uryuu has no one to listen to him, so he mourns to you. "Inoue-san, it's hard on me when you treat me this way."


**Mala Suerte **

**Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach. **

**A/N: Well quite honestly I thought 'Quincy Archer Loves You' was me being hopelessly optimistic. And while heartbroken Orihime makes me sad, the angst of this pairing is mighty beautiful. I just hope I did a good job of conveying it. **

**x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x**

"Kurosaki-kun…I like you." She held her heart in her hands as though it might slip through her fingers. "I like you very, very much. Kurosaki-kun…I love you." Her thin arms extended smoothly towards him, her heart still cupped in her palms.

Ichigo stared at her.

"Inoue…you're a good woman."

The best, Kurosaki! You don't know what you're talking about.

"Any man would be lucky to have you."

A painful, hinting moment passed. She spoke. "Kurosaki-kun, you're saying 'no', aren't you?"

He hesitated. A black-haired, small-stature shinigami that he can't have ran across his mind. Kuchiki-san was _**there. **_Inoue-san was _**here. **_Where were his affections?

"Sorry, Inoue."

Her outstretched arms drew back to her chest, but her heart stayed in the air between them for one swift, motionless moment before plummeting to the ground.

_Splat. _

What a funny word.

What an intensely private scene.

What am I doing here? Hah, listen to be talking without an introduction. Shall I tell you my name? My position between these two people?

I am Ishida Uryuu, and I am the air trying to catch hold of her heart.

So to speak. So to use imaginative metaphors. No matter how hard I try, I have no fingers with which to grasp her, save her. I have no right to try, either. Who am I to her? Who am I to Inoue Orihime? She has been Kurosaki's for far longer than I have been hers. My feelings for her wither and die in comparison to the rich sobriety of hers for him.

Kurosaki is an idiot.

This I have known for a long time, but the enormity of it only strikes me when I think of the way he treats Inoue-san. When I can see her tacking all her hopes on him, how can he miss it? How can he not feel her warm eyes on his body every time he moves? If ever she were to look at me that way, I might catch fire. I can think of no better way to perish.

When the Winter War was starting up and we intruders were in Hueco Mundo for her sake, Kurosaki left Inoue-san alone with me for a time on the roof of Las Noches.

It was the highest point of an otherwise second-best life. It was also the worst I had ever felt—not due to the fact that I was dying and she was healing. But what she spoke to me about left a black stain in my heart that I can't wash away with all the blood in the world. Perhaps she wasn't aware that I could hear, but I was treated to a first-hand account of her last night in the mortal world when of all the people she wanted to say goodbye to, she chose Kurosaki Ichigo.

"It was the first time I'd been in his room, Ishida-kun. It was the first time I could smell him all around me." Her voice was heavy with tears, but I'd known better than to think they were for my injuries. "I thought to myself, 'Okay, Orihime, this is your one chance to kiss him! Kiss him!' but…ha-ha, I was so useless. Even with my lips less than an inch away form his, I couldn't. How could I? The only woman who has a right to his kiss is Kuchiki-san."

Her hands glowed against my battered chest and I thought I knew exactly what she meant. We were so close, then, but there were miles between us. I could feel her long hair falling over her shoulders and onto mine, but I could've no more pulled her to my arms than I could've stopped that not-Kurosaki thing from attacking me.

"I talked to him as he slept, Ishida-kun. I told him, 'I'd like to live my life five times over. Each of those five times I'd be born in a different place and fill my tummy with five different kinds of food…but each of those five times I'd fall in love with the same person.' Do you think he heard me?"

_Do you think I can't hear you?_ Never before had I felt the grip of such a jealous anger around my throat, choking me with my own bile. To see her worry over him always made me sad (tore apart my heart) but to hear her tongue form the word 'love' and apply it to him was more than I could take.

…And yet I continued to lie there and take it.

"It—he—the thing he became," her words were soft with curiosity under deep drifts of morbid emotions, "It said it wanted to help me. Do you think…when I screamed for help…do you think Kurosaki-kun heard me?"

She meant to ask if she'd brought him back from the dead. I thought she might've. Her scream had sounded like a nightmare. Who wouldn't want to protect her, to stop her distress? Kurosaki had come running in the only way he could: as a strong, volatile hollow. It was stupendously unfair. How could he care enough to deny death, how could he have all the strength he needs to defend her, and yet not want _**her**_? And why did I—without his power, without his spirits—why was I always ready to die for her? Why did I court death for her?

"I hope he's safe, Ishida-kun."

Inoue-san, it's hard on me when you treat me this way. Inoue-san, I am not a sink in which to empty your concern. Inoue-san, please don't cry for him in front of me. I love you.

Do _**you **_hear _**me**_?

I try to squeeze those words in every time I address you, only they never make it past my heart. I'm not a coward. I swear on the Quincy pride, I am not a coward.

I merely fail to see the purpose in giving voice to my emotions when you will not return them, ever.

**x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x**

**I was at a loss for a title until I thought of Yami, and Uryuu's fight with Szayel Apollo Grantz.**


End file.
